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Another woman of another kind
seven stories for flute and eight voices on texts by Paul Griffiths
Density 2036: part iv (2016)
Another woman of another kind — a commedia of identity — circles around the line: “It seems I should remember what to say.” This 23-minute, kaleidoscopic song-cycle for Claire Chase and Roomful of Teeth sets seven unpublished poems by Paul Griffiths.
The work is based on a millisecond-level microtiming analysis of Claire’s own performance of Varèse’s Density 21.5 made in February 2016 at Meyer Sound in Berkeley, California. The duration of each sound event — Claire’s every pitch, click, surge, and breath — was measured, transcribed into notation, and used as material.
The title — a line from Griffiths’ closing sonnet — hints that there are (at least) two Claires involved in the piece: The MeyerSoundClaire that is transcribed into the notation, and the LiveOnstageClaire who (with Teeth) weaves new music atop, inside, behind and under the microtimed transcription. Finally, the durations of the movements follow a curve — each is longer that the one before.
© 2016 Richard Beaudoin
Richard Beaudoin: Another Woman
Richard Beaudoin is an architect of the microtiming technique. Iconic recordings are transcribed in minute detail, then treated as palimpsest, forming a parchment over which the composer manipulates, reorganizes and interweaves original material to create innovative compositions of startling beauty and originality.
Performers of Beaudoin’s works include Claire Chase, Roomful of Teeth, Boston Lyric Opera, the Kreutzer and Chiara String Quartets, Sound Icon, members of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Transient Canvas, Mark Knoop, Colin Davin, Marilyn Nonken, Constantine Finehouse, Wolfram Rieger, Ulrich Naudé, and Philip Howard, Serge Vuille, Christopher Graham, Clive Driskill-Smith, Christian Wilson, Carl Rosman, Clio Gould, Peter Sheppard Skaerved, Neil Heyde, and Rohan de Saram. His vocal music has been sung widely by artists including Annette Dasch, Dashon Burton, Estelí Gomez, Joseph Kaiser, Annika Sophie Ritlewski, Frank Kelley, Kevin Burdette and Roomful of Teeth. Settings of Paul Griffiths, Christian Bök, Celan, Éluard, Empson, William Henry Fox Talbot, Heaney, Heine, Hölderlin, MacDiarmid, Melville, Morgenstern, Muresan, Pushkin, Rilke, Rückert, John Updike, William Carlos Williams, and Christa Wolf.
Recordings include Digital Memory and the Archive (New Focus 2023) and Microtimings (New Focus 2012), as well as contributions to Claire Chase’s Density 2036, part iv (2020) and recordings by Constantine Finehouse and Daniel Kurganov.
Compositions performed at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Wiener Konzerthaus, the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Brucknerhaus in Linz, the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele, The Kitchen, Weill Recital Hall, Boston's The Institute for Contemporary Art, Calderwood Pavilion, Sanders Theatre and Jordan Hall, and in London at the Royal Festival Hall, Duke’s Hall, The Forge, The Arcola Theatre, Wilton’s Music Hall, Pushkin House, and King’s Place. Commissions from Konzerthaus Dortmund, Staatstheater Kassel, the President of Harvard University, Sound Icon, and Boston Lyric Opera.
Since Fall 2019, Beaudoin has held a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Music at Dartmouth College.